QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Kate Colfs writes of the Roggenkamps: German brothers who became pioneers of a different sort after they settled in Queensland. In 1862, when Christopher Roggenkamp was 20, he left Germany for a new life in Australia, following in the footsteps of his two older siblings, Otto and Martin. The three brothers settled in Queensland, where Christopher and Martin became professional photographers, joined, for a time, by Otto. The first permanent negative images were created in 1834 in England by Henry Fox Talbot. Five years later, “photography” became accessible to people other than eccentrics and scientists when, across the Channel, Louis Daguerre publicised his ‘Daguerrotype’ process, in which images were recorded on silver-plated copper, coated with silver iodide and ‘developed’ with warmed mercury; it was time-consuming and expensive. By 1851 the ‘wet plate collodion’ method was introduced, allowing for unlimited reproductions on paper, making the photographs thus produced cheaper and, for the first time, commercially viable. This development led to portrait studios flowering all over Europe, and it did not take long for the new technology to find its way to Australia. At the time of Christopher Roggenkamp’s birth in 1842, Ütersen, in the duchy of Holstein, was still part of Denmark and so, officially, he and his brothers were born Danes. The Roggenkamp childhoods were spent against a background of political discontent and upheaval as Prussia and Denmark fought for ownership of the disputed lands of Schleswig and Holstein. This led to a series of wars over the next 15 years. In 1857, as a young man of 15, Christopher began a four-year apprenticeship in Altona, a borough of Hamburg (until 1864, Altona was one of the Danish monarchy’s most important harbour towns), and in 1861, he qualified as Maler or painter. He then spent a year as a ‘journeyman’ in Germany, travelling to many towns, including Leipzig, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Halle, where he worked with various master-craftsmen. At the end of this time he returned to Ütersen and then, at the end of November 1862, set sail for Australia aboard the Cesar Godeffroy . Otto and Martin, the two older brothers, were already in Warwick when Christopher arrived in Moreton Bay in 1863. (Otto had arrived some years earlier, but exact dates cannot be ascertained.) On 19 August 1865 Otto married Catherine Thege in Brisbane. She had arrived in Moreton Bay on the Peter Godeffroy on 10 August 1865, just one week before their marriage. Her brothers Herman and Joachim and sister Anna accompanied her. A legacy of light

Martin sailed out on the Alwine from Hamburg via London and

Sydney, working there as a photographer for a number of years, before heading to Queensland. On 13 December 1862, he purchased a block of land in Albion Street, Warwick, and built a house and photographic studio – where the Warwick Library and Art Gallery now stand. What motivated the three brothers to travel so far from home? Was it opportunity? Escape? Adventure? Or was it to avoid military service? They were born Danes and, as such, would be liable to serve with the Danish military. With Denmark constantly at war with Prussia, were they leaving to avoid having to take arms against the German people? Supposition is also well-founded that the new Colonial government in Queensland had contracted one or more of the brothers to emigrate, and to document the development of the region from Warwick to Nerang. Contracts were common amongst the German immigrants – all immigrants for whom the government paid the fare out were contracted to work either for an employer in the agricultural sector or for the government. Most contracts were for three to five years.

Two letters, written in 1869 to Christopher from Government House in Brisbane, seem to suggest that he was indeed supplying the Governor with photographs. Many of his photographs carry the official coat-of-arms. His brother Martin also used the same heraldic device on his photographs and was under the patronage of Queensland’s fifth Governor, Sir Arthur Kennedy (1877–1883).

So, Christopher, Martin and, less so, Otto, all became photographers. In the 1850s and ’60s, photography was still very much in its infancy: cameras were bulky, processes complex, and darkroom equipment would not have been easy to come by in the young colonies. Not long after his arrival in Brisbane, Christopher travelled upriver to Ipswich by steamer (the Cobb and Co coach service didn’t commence until 1865). From there he would have ridden southwest, over the mountains, via the Spicer’s Gap Road (just to the south of Cunningham’s Gap), his possessions following in a dray. The Spicer’s Gap track had been in use since the late 1840s and the journey could take several days – or longer if the weather was bad. The road remained the main thoroughfare from Brisbane to Warwick until the railway from Toowoomba reached Warwick in 1871.

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